A SPECIAL canine event is to be held in Brentwood to raise awareness of the role dogs play in war.

The Essex Dog Training Centre, on Doddinghurst Road, will host the event next month to celebrate the role of Military Working Dogs, Hero Dogs and Assistance Dogs from World War One to present day.

The centre is being tasked with creating a First World War messenger dog route, and then to train other dogs to show how they had to negotiate the terrain of the war front lines to deliver important messages.

Over 50,000 dogs were killed while serving from 1914 to 1918.

Chief instructor at the centre, Roy Dyer, said: “It will of course be impossible to create the identical type or size of the area the dogs in war time worked in, however what we are building will give a good idea of what they had to deal with.”